With Rodriguez Back, Things Look Bleak for Yankees

With Rodriguez Back, Things Look Bleak for Yankees

Article excerpt

As Alex Rodriguez brings his drug-laden baggage back to his team,
a strange bit of fallout has occurred: some people feel sorry for
the Yankees.

In a million years, in a million baseball seasons, I never would
have dreamed I'd ever say this: I feel sorry for the Yankees.

But, thanks to the disgraced and despicable Alex Rodriguez, that
time has come.

Any team that has to deal with Rodriguez and all of his drug-
laden baggage could use some sympathy, especially now that Rodriguez
is back to annoy everyone again, fresh off his record 162-game drug
suspension.

Poor Yankees. This past season, the franchise with enough World
Series rings to bejewel a small army failed to make the playoffs for
the second straight year. For a team whose fans expect championships
on a steady basis, this little drought might as well be 119 years.
It's a solemn time for the Yankees, and they need some peace and
quiet to reflect, and to figure out how to win again.

But Rodriguez didn't get that memo. Basically, he has returned
playing the cymbals, ready to put on the pinstripes again for a team
that needs no part of him and his noise but now has to deal with a
whole new set of drug revelations involving the onetime slugger.

So what do the Yankees do with Rodriguez, who has become the lead
of a comedy so dark and wrong that you feel guilty for watching it?
He is a player who has lied about his steroid use, then admitted it
(2009), then publicly said he was absolutely clean (2013-present) --
it's a witch hunt, he declared -- and then turned around to
privately testify to federal agents that why, yes, he had used
drugs, a lot of drugs, in recent years, and thanks for asking.

After a nasty public battle with Major League Baseball, which
initially barred him for 211 games in connection with the Biogenesis
of America case, Rodriguez has seen the light, but only because
federal prosecutors held a torch above him.

Those prosecutors granted Rodriguez immunity in their
investigation of Anthony Bosch and his Biogenesis clinic, a
superstore of performance-enhancing drugs for which Rodriguez
evidently had a frequent buyer card. In turn, Rodriguez finally
fessed up about his more recent drug use. He admitted to paying
Bosch about $12,000 a month for P.E.D.s, including "vitamin
cocktails," human growth hormone, steroid cream and lozenges with
testosterone.

All of this was first reported on Wednesday by The Miami Herald,
which cited a 15-page synopsis of a meeting Rodriguez had with
federal agents in late January.

It's hardly a surprise that Rodriguez did not tell the truth
about his Biogenesis links until that session with the feds. Lance
Armstrong did a superb job of ridding us of our naivete about
adamant doping denials.

As for the Yankees, they probably aren't cheering his truth-
telling, since they no doubt want Rodriguez to just disappear
already. …